Operation Solo is America's greatest spy story. For 17 years, Morris Childs, code named "Agent 58," provided the United States with the Kremlin's innermost secrets. Repeatedly risking his life, "Agent 58" made 51 clandestine missions into the Soviet Union, China, Eastern Europe, and Cuba. Because Morris was in effect the second-ranking man in the U.S. Communist Party, he was treated like royalty by communist leaders worldwide. They never knew he was working for the FBI.

Operation Solo ventures into the recesses of the Kremlin and the FBI. "Agent 58" was present at the 20th Party Congress in Moscow when Khrushchev became the first Soviet leader to document and condemn the mass murders engineered by Josef Stalin. The secret speech was such a damning indictment of Soviet communism that it was intended only for the ears of the party oligarchy, but Morris Childs was able to obtain a copy for the FBI. Communism never fully recovered from the effects of the speech's publication by the U.S. State Department.

This operation - which the FBI officially considers the greatest in its history - forewarned the United States of Soviet intentions in Berlin, of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, of the details, from the inception, of the Sino-Soviet split, of Soviet subversion in Africa and Latin America, and much more. Through first-hand accounts, Operation Solo tells the story of the conflicts within the FBI and American intelligence about the operation and how the FBI, through extraordinary measures, managed to keep that operation hidden from everyone, including the CIA.

Résumé :

Operation Solo is America's greatest spy story. For 17 years, Morris Childs, code named "Agent 58," provided the United States with the Kremlin's innermost secrets. Repeatedly risking his life, "Agent 58" made 51 clandestine missions into the Soviet Union, China, Eastern Europe, and Cuba. Because Morris was in effect the second-ranking man in the U.S. Communist Party, he was treated like royalty by communist leaders worldwide. They never knew he was working for the FBI.

Operation Solo ventures into the recesses of the Kremlin and the FBI. "Agent 58" was present at the 20th Party Congress in Moscow when Khrushchev became the first Soviet leader to document and condemn the mass murders engineered by Josef Stalin. The secret speech was such a damning indictment of Soviet communism that it was intended only for the ears of the party oligarchy, but Morris Childs was able to obtain a copy for the FBI. Communism never fully recovered from the effects of the speech's publication by the U.S. State Department.

This operation - which the FBI officially considers the greatest in its history - forewarned the United States of Soviet intentions in Berlin, of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, of the details, from the inception, of the Sino-Soviet split, of Soviet subversion in Africa and Latin America, and much more. Through first-hand accounts, Operation Solo tells the story of the conflicts within the FBI and American intelligence about the operation and how the FBI, through extraordinary measures, managed to keep that operation hidden from everyone, including the CIA.

Operation Solo-An Excellent Read

I could not put down this book after I had found it by chance in my library. It is an excellent read concerning the way the USA has had solid, critical intelligence into the minds of many leaders of the Communism, mostly in the USSR and the People's Republic of China. For me, who has...Lire la suite...

I could not put down this book after I had found it by chance in my library. It is an excellent read concerning the way the USA has had solid, critical intelligence into the minds of many leaders of the Communism, mostly in the USSR and the People's Republic of China. For me, who has not had that much knowledge into the Soviet side of the Cold War, this book is a true eye-opener about how the USSR perceived events as they happened during history. That in of itself would be make a good book, but Barron has allows the reader to as is often said, "see things how [the communists] see it." It is in this way that it is discovered that the USSR was not worried about the US as much as the PRC, which they competed with for control of global communism.This book is not at all an action novel that people commonly think of when they hear "spy novel." It is the dreadful spectre of discovery that looms over Childs and his loved ones as he brings to the US priceless secrets straight from the minds of Krushchev, Brezhnev, and many other Soviet leaders. The US has constantly been seen as losing battles in espionage; infiltration of the US is not as difficult because a free society naturally is porous. Thus, many US secret become compromised on a regular basis-Prometheus with the A-Bomb is an example of that. However, Operation Solo gave the US secrets that helped it win that war.This book does meander at times and then it becomes difficult to follow the pacing as event occur, but this is far outweighed by the significance of the book as a crucial book for understanding the Cold War and the complex web of connections that link the USA to the USSR. Morris Childs and everyone who worked on Operation Solo did not have an easy job-but they helped secure peace between superpowers who were at each other's throats and that deserves more honor and respect than would make up for their pain.

"Operation Solo ventures into the recesses of the Kremlin and the FBI. "Agent 58" was present at the 20th Party Congress in Moscow when Khrushchev became the first Soviet leader to document and condemn the mass murders engineered by Josef Stalin. The secret speech was such a damning indictment of Soviet communism that it was intended only for the ears of the party oligarchy, but Morris Childs was able to obtain a copy for the FBI. Communism never fully recovered from the effects of the speech's publication by the U.S. State Department."@en

"This operation - which the FBI officially considers the greatest in its history - forewarned the United States of Soviet intentions in Berlin, of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, of the details, from the inception, of the Sino-Soviet split, of Soviet subversion in Africa and Latin America, and much more. Through first-hand accounts, Operation Solo tells the story of the conflicts within the FBI and American intelligence about the operation and how the FBI, through extraordinary measures, managed to keep that operation hidden from everyone, including the CIA."@en

"Operation Solo is America's greatest spy story. For 17 years, Morris Childs, code named "Agent 58," provided the United States with the Kremlin's innermost secrets. Repeatedly risking his life, "Agent 58" made 51 clandestine missions into the Soviet Union, China, Eastern Europe, and Cuba. Because Morris was in effect the second-ranking man in the U.S. Communist Party, he was treated like royalty by communist leaders worldwide. They never knew he was working for the FBI."@en